Writing about "Write All About It"
| By AndrewGarib - Jul 13th, 2005 at 3:30 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Michael Tomasky modated "Write all about it", with three kick-ass young journalists who def. know what they're talking about. Tomasky talked about how important it is to READ (go figure) as a journalist. How do you know what to cover if you don't know what's going on in the world?
Anya Kamenetz of the Village Voice, Benoit Denizet-Lewis of the New York Times Magazine and Sarah Wildman of The American Prospect told us of the need to balance molding our stories to our audience and getting underreported stories out to the public, the importance of creating trusting relationships between sources and reporters and of having good personal spokespeople for your stories (those who are affected, not just wonks from lobby groups and parties!).
Reporting is a matter of discovery and learning. It's more important than "the 8,400,000 liberal opinion columns out there" . How many op eds did it take to break the recent Karl Rove stories, or for that matter, Watergate, or Mai Lai, or Abu Ghraib?
How do we kill the "cult of objectivity" that lets radical conservatives get equal time on mainstream networks with moderate and liberal voices? Actually report the story! Sometimes there aren't two sides to a story.
Kamenetz, when asked how to get important stories onto the public agenda, answered quite concisely: "touch people on their own hearts and on their kitchen tables.” Can't beat the eloquence of journalists, can ya?
Really great seminar. Looking forward to the National Security seminar.
Anya Kamenetz of the Village Voice, Benoit Denizet-Lewis of the New York Times Magazine and Sarah Wildman of The American Prospect told us of the need to balance molding our stories to our audience and getting underreported stories out to the public, the importance of creating trusting relationships between sources and reporters and of having good personal spokespeople for your stories (those who are affected, not just wonks from lobby groups and parties!).
Reporting is a matter of discovery and learning. It's more important than "the 8,400,000 liberal opinion columns out there" . How many op eds did it take to break the recent Karl Rove stories, or for that matter, Watergate, or Mai Lai, or Abu Ghraib?
How do we kill the "cult of objectivity" that lets radical conservatives get equal time on mainstream networks with moderate and liberal voices? Actually report the story! Sometimes there aren't two sides to a story.
Kamenetz, when asked how to get important stories onto the public agenda, answered quite concisely: "touch people on their own hearts and on their kitchen tables.” Can't beat the eloquence of journalists, can ya?
Really great seminar. Looking forward to the National Security seminar.
!
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coming up through the journalistic ranks - it is
too bad that there are too few outlets for young
talent to make their voices heard. This is
especially true of broadcast journalism, where the
talking head has become the norm. When a story is
limited to 1 minute of airtime, fairness and
objectivity become relative because all that is
left of the story is a general impression, not the
extensive background and facts that allow print
journalists to investigate stories and draw real
conclusions.
There is one interesting initiative, IWT News,
which is trying to build a network that will
return the emphasis to real investigative
journalism. Check it out at www.iwtnews.com. It
would be a big benefit to have a television outlet
that actually pursues stories - they are also
encouraging initiatives like citizen journalism to
get the public involved as well.
Anyway, some good comments on the need for real
investigation in broadcasting are here:
http://www.iwtnews.com/node/1291